Kate Pullinger, digital and print novelist, will present "Literature Online: How the Internet is Transforming Fiction." She has co-authored the young adult digital novel, Inanimate Alice and was named a 2012 Best Website for Teaching & Learning by the American Association of School Librarians. Her print novel, The Mistress of Nothing, fictionalizes the experience of Sally Naldrett, a Victorian-era lady’s maid who accompanied Lady Duff Gordon to Egypt. It was awarded the 2009 Governor General’s Award. Pullinger is currently a professor of creative writing at Bath Spa University in England.

The Meryl Norton Hearst endowed fund was established in 1988 by a donation to the university by James S. Hearst in honor of his late wife, Meryl Norton Hearst. James S. Hearst, a poet, served as a professor of creative writing at UNI from 1941 to 1975. Sponsored by the Department of Languages & Literatures in the College of Humanities, Arts & Sciences.